Tarot Reading My life
Reading Performed 11/08/2024 at 7:56 AM
Click or scroll down for the meaning of each position and the interpretation of its card.
Visual Layout
Card One
Four of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Prosperity, growth, cheerfulness, beauty, embellishment.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A married woman will have beautiful children.
Card Description
From four staves planted in the foreground, a great garland hangs. Two female figures hold up bouquets. To one side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old mansion.
Card Two
Wheel of Fortune from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Growth, abundance, surplus.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
The Wheel of Fortune. There is a current Manual of Cartomancy which has obtained a considerable vogue in England, and amidst a great scattermeal of curious things to no purpose has intersected a few serious subjects. In its last and largest edition it treats in one section of the Tarot; which--if I interpret the author rightly--it regards from beginning to end as the Wheel of Fortune, this expression being understood in my own sense. I have no objection to such an inclusive though conventional description; it obtains in all the worlds, and I wonder that it has not been adopted previously as the most appropriate name on the side of common fortune-telling. It is also the title of one of the Trumps Major--that indeed of our concern at the moment, as my sub-title shews. Of recent years this has suffered many fantastic presentations and one hypothetical reconstruction which is suggestive in its symbolism. The wheel has seven radii; in the eighteenth century the ascending and descending animals were really of nondescript character, one of them having a human head. At the summit was another monster with the body of an indeterminate beast, wings on shoulders and a crown on head. It carried two wands in its claws. These are replaced in the reconstruction by a Hermanubis rising with the wheel, a Sphinx couchant at the summit and a Typhon on the descending side. Here is another instance of an invention in support of a hypothesis; but if the latter be set aside the grouping is symbolically correct and can pass as such.
Card Description
The four Living Creatures of Ezekiel occupy the corners of the card. The symbols on the disc in the center stand for the perpetual motion of an ever-changing universe and for the flux of human life. The Sphinx is equilibrium within that state of change. The letters of Taro or Rota are inscribed on the wheel, interspersed with the Hebrew letters of the Divine Name—to show that Providence is implied through all existence. However, this is the Divine intention within, and the similar intention on the surface is represented by the four Living Creatures.
Card Three
Five of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The same; burial and funeral rites.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A sign of sorrow and mourning.
Card Description
A scornful man watches two retreating and dejected figures, whose swords lie on the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder. A third sword in his right hand points to earth. He is the master in possession of the field.
Card Four
Eight of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Anxiety, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery; surprises; fatality.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Departure of a relative.
Card Description
A woman stands bound and blindfolded, with the swords of the card around her. It is a card of temporary imprisonment rather than permanent bondage.
Card Five
King of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Judgement and its associations; power, command, authority, military intelligence, law, offices of the state.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A lawyer, senator, doctor.
Card Description
He sits in judgement, holding the sign of his suit. He recalls the Justice card from the Major Arcana, and he may represent this virtue, but he possesses earthly power over life and death, because he is King.
Card Six
The Chariot from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
The Chariot. This is represented in some extant codices as being drawn by two sphinxes, and the device is in consonance with the symbolism, but it must not be supposed that such was its original form; the variation was invented to support a particular historical hypothesis. In the eighteenth century white horses were yoked to the car. As regards its usual name, the lesser stands for the greater; it is really the King in his triumph, typifying, however, the victory which creates kingship as its natural consequence and not the vested royalty of the fourth card. M. Court de Gebelin said that it was Osiris Triumphing, the conquering sun in spring-time having vanquished the obstacles of winter. We know now that Osiris rising from the dead is not represented by such obvious symbolism. Other animals than horses have also been used to draw the currus triumphalis, as, for example, a lion and a leopard.
Card Description
An upright and princely figure carrying a wand. On the shoulders of the victorious hero are the Urim and Thummim, symbols of divination—here shown as faces within crescent moons. He has led captivity captive (see Psalm 68:18); he represents conquest on all planes—in the mind, in science, in progress, and in certain trials of initiation. He has replied to the sphinx's riddle; therefore, two sphinxes draw his chariot. He is above all things triumph in the mind.
Card Seven
Nine of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Obstacles, adversity, disasters.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
Generally speaking, a bad card.
Card Description
A man leans upon his staff with an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. His build indicates that he may prove a formidable opponent. Behind are eight other staves—upright, in orderly arrangement, like a fence.
Card Eight
Six of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Declaration, confession, publicity; a proposal of love.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Unfavourable issue of lawsuit.
Card Description
A ferryman carries passengers in his raft to the far shore. The course is smooth, and the freight is light; the work is not beyond his strength.
Card Nine
The Star from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Loss, theft, deprivation, abandonment.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The Star, Dog-Star, or Sirius, also called fantastically the Star of the Magi. Grouped about it are seven minor luminaries, and beneath it is a naked female figure, with her left knee upon the earth and her right foot upon the water. She is in the act of pouring fluids from two vessels. A bird is perched on a tree near her; for this a butterfly on a rose has been substituted in some later cards. So also the Star has been called that of Hope. This is one of the cards which Court de Gebelin describes as wholly Egyptian-that is to say, in his own reverie.
Card Description
A large, radiant star of eight points, surrounded by seven lesser stars—also of eight points. The female figure in the foreground is entirely naked. Her left knee is on the land and her right foot on the water. She pours the Water of Life from two great pitchers, irrigating sea and land. Behind her is rising ground, and on the right a shrub on which a bird perches. The figure expresses eternal youth and beauty. The star is l'etoile flamboyante, a symbol of Freemasonry. The figure communicates to the earth around her the substance of the heavens and the elements.
Card Ten
Queen of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonor, depravity.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A rich marriage for a man and a distinguished one for a woman.
Card Description
She is beautiful, fair, and dreamy; as if she sees visions in her cup. This is, however, only one of her sides; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream.
Card Eleven
Three of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
The conclusion of any matter in plenty, perfection and merriment; an easy birth; victory, fulfillment, solace, healing.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Unexpected advancement for a military man.
Card Description
Ladies stand in a garden with cups held high, as if making a promise to one another.
Card Twelve
Six of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Desire, greed, envy, jealousy, illusion.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A check on the Querent's ambition.
Card Description
A merchant weighs money in a pair of scales, and distributes it to the needy and distressed. It is a testimony to his own success in life, as well as to his goodness of heart.
Card Thirteen
King of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Dishonest, double-dealing man; mischief, demands of payment, injustice, vice, scandal, pillage, considerable loss.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Loss.
Card Description
He holds a short scepter in his left hand and a cup in his right. His throne is set upon the sea. On one side a ship sails, and on the other a fish leaps.
Card Fourteen
Nine of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Good ground for suspicion against a doubtful person.
Card Description
A woman sits on her bed, sobbing, with swords on the wall above her. She grieves as if she knows of no sorrow like hers. It is a card of utter desolation.
Card Fifteen
Seven of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Cause for anxiety regarding money someone wants to borrow.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Impatience, apprehension, suspicion.
Card Description
A young man leans on his staff, and looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a plant on his right. It looks as if these were his treasures, and as if his heart were there.
Card Sixteen
The Devil from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
The Devil. In the eighteenth century this card seems to have been rather a symbol of merely animal impudicity. Except for a fantastic head-dress, the chief figure is entirely naked; it has bat-like wings, and the hands and feet are represented by the claws of a bird. In the right hand there is a sceptre terminating in a sign which has been thought to represent fire. The figure as a whole is not particularly evil; it has no tail, and the commentators who have said that the claws are those of a harpy have spoken at random. There is no better ground for the alternative suggestion that they are eagle's claws. Attached, by a cord depending from their collars, to the pedestal on which the figure is mounted, are two small demons, presumably male and female. These are tailed, but not winged. Since 1856 the influence of Eliphas Levi and his doctrine of occultism has changed the face of this card, and it now appears as a pseudo-Baphometic figure with the head of a goat and a great torch between the horns; it is seated instead of erect, and in place of the generative organs there is the Hermetic caduceus. In Le Tarot Divinatoire of Papus the small demons are replaced by naked human beings, male and female who are yoked only to each other. The author may be felicitated on this improved symbolism.
Card Description
The main figure is entirely naked; he has bat-like wings, and his feet have the claws of a bird. His right hand is upraised and extended, which is the reverse of the blessing given by the Hierophant. In his left hand there is a great flaming torch, inverted toward the earth. A reversed pentagram is on his forehead. There is a ring in front of the altar, from which two chains are attached to the necks of two figures, male and female. These are analogous to The Lovers, like Adam and Eve after the Fall. They represent the chains and fatality of the material life.
Card Seventeen
Two of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion; trouble, fear.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
A young lady may expect trivial disappointments.
Card Description
A tall man looks from a roof with battlements, overlooking sea and shore. He holds a globe in his right hand, and a staff in his left hand rests on the battlement. Another staff is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lily appears on the left side.
Card Eighteen
Knight of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Inertia, idleness, inactivity, stagnation; also stillness, discouragement, carelessness.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A brave man out of employment.
Card Description
A knight rides a slow, heavy horse, similar in appearance to himself. He displays his symbol, but does not look at it.
Card Nineteen
The World from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Assured success, compensation, voyage, travel, emigration, fleeing, change of place.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The four living creatures of the Apocalypse and Ezekiel's vision, attributed to the evangelists in Christian symbolism, are grouped about an elliptic garland, as if it were a chain of flowers intended to symbolize all sensible things; within this garland there is the figure of a woman, whom the wind has girt about the loins with a light scarf, and this is all her vesture. She is in the act of dancing, and has a wand in either hand. It is eloquent as an image of the swirl of the sensitive life, of joy attained in the body, of the soul's intoxication in the earthly paradise, but still guarded by the Divine Watchers, as if by the powers and the graces of the Holy Name, Tetragammaton, JVHV--those four ineffable letters which are sometimes attributed to the mystical beasts. Eliphas Levi calls the garland a crown, and reports that the figure represents Truth. Dr. Papus connects it with the Absolute and the realization of the Great Work; for yet others it is a symbol of humanity and the eternal reward of a life that has been spent well. It should be noted that in the four quarters of the garland there are four flowers distinctively marked. According to P. Christian, the garland should be formed of roses, and this is the kind of chain which Eliphas Levi says is less easily broken than a chain of iron. Perhaps by antithesis, but for the same reason, the iron crown of Peter may he more lightly on the heads of sovereign pontiffs than the crown of gold on kings.
Card Description
The four living creatures of the Apocalypse and Ezekiel's vision are grouped around an elliptic garland. They are attributed to the four Gospels in Christian symbolism. Within this garland there is the figure of a woman, whom the wind has clothed with a light scarf, and this is all she wears. She is dancing, with a wand in either hand. It speaks of the swirl of the sensory life, of joy attained in the body, of the soul's intoxication in the earthly paradise. However, she is still guarded by the Divine Watchers. They are the powers and the graces of the Holy Name, Tetragammaton, JVHV. These four ineffable letters are often attributed to the four mystical beasts. This card represents the perfection and end of the Cosmos, the secret within the Cosmos, its rapture when it understands itself in God. This card is further the state of the soul in the awareness of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-aware spirit.
Card Twenty
Knight of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Trickery, deception, cunning, swindling, duplicity, fraud.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Irregularity.
Card Description
A graceful but not warlike figure rides quietly. He wears a winged helmet to symbolize the imagination. He is a dreamer, and the images of sensory things haunt him in his vision.
Card Twenty One
Five of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Inheritance, patrimony, transmission of wealth, but not corresponding to expectations; marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Generally favourable; a happy marriage; also patrimony, legacies, gifts, success in enterprise.
Card Description
A dark, cloaked figure looks sideways at three cups lying on the ground. Two others stand upright behind him. A bridge in the background leads to a small keep or holding. This is a card of loss, but something remains at the end; three have been taken, but two are left.
The Meanings of these Tarot Cards
Card One
Four of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Prosperity, growth, cheerfulness, beauty, embellishment.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A married woman will have beautiful children.
Card Description
From four staves planted in the foreground, a great garland hangs. Two female figures hold up bouquets. To one side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old mansion.
Card Two
Wheel of Fortune from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Growth, abundance, surplus.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
The Wheel of Fortune. There is a current Manual of Cartomancy which has obtained a considerable vogue in England, and amidst a great scattermeal of curious things to no purpose has intersected a few serious subjects. In its last and largest edition it treats in one section of the Tarot; which--if I interpret the author rightly--it regards from beginning to end as the Wheel of Fortune, this expression being understood in my own sense. I have no objection to such an inclusive though conventional description; it obtains in all the worlds, and I wonder that it has not been adopted previously as the most appropriate name on the side of common fortune-telling. It is also the title of one of the Trumps Major--that indeed of our concern at the moment, as my sub-title shews. Of recent years this has suffered many fantastic presentations and one hypothetical reconstruction which is suggestive in its symbolism. The wheel has seven radii; in the eighteenth century the ascending and descending animals were really of nondescript character, one of them having a human head. At the summit was another monster with the body of an indeterminate beast, wings on shoulders and a crown on head. It carried two wands in its claws. These are replaced in the reconstruction by a Hermanubis rising with the wheel, a Sphinx couchant at the summit and a Typhon on the descending side. Here is another instance of an invention in support of a hypothesis; but if the latter be set aside the grouping is symbolically correct and can pass as such.
Card Description
The four Living Creatures of Ezekiel occupy the corners of the card. The symbols on the disc in the center stand for the perpetual motion of an ever-changing universe and for the flux of human life. The Sphinx is equilibrium within that state of change. The letters of Taro or Rota are inscribed on the wheel, interspersed with the Hebrew letters of the Divine Name—to show that Providence is implied through all existence. However, this is the Divine intention within, and the similar intention on the surface is represented by the four Living Creatures.
Card Three
Five of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
The same; burial and funeral rites.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A sign of sorrow and mourning.
Card Description
A scornful man watches two retreating and dejected figures, whose swords lie on the ground. He carries two others on his left shoulder. A third sword in his right hand points to earth. He is the master in possession of the field.
Card Four
Eight of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Anxiety, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery; surprises; fatality.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Departure of a relative.
Card Description
A woman stands bound and blindfolded, with the swords of the card around her. It is a card of temporary imprisonment rather than permanent bondage.
Card Five
King of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Judgement and its associations; power, command, authority, military intelligence, law, offices of the state.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A lawyer, senator, doctor.
Card Description
He sits in judgement, holding the sign of his suit. He recalls the Justice card from the Major Arcana, and he may represent this virtue, but he possesses earthly power over life and death, because he is King.
Card Six
The Chariot from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
The Chariot. This is represented in some extant codices as being drawn by two sphinxes, and the device is in consonance with the symbolism, but it must not be supposed that such was its original form; the variation was invented to support a particular historical hypothesis. In the eighteenth century white horses were yoked to the car. As regards its usual name, the lesser stands for the greater; it is really the King in his triumph, typifying, however, the victory which creates kingship as its natural consequence and not the vested royalty of the fourth card. M. Court de Gebelin said that it was Osiris Triumphing, the conquering sun in spring-time having vanquished the obstacles of winter. We know now that Osiris rising from the dead is not represented by such obvious symbolism. Other animals than horses have also been used to draw the currus triumphalis, as, for example, a lion and a leopard.
Card Description
An upright and princely figure carrying a wand. On the shoulders of the victorious hero are the Urim and Thummim, symbols of divination—here shown as faces within crescent moons. He has led captivity captive (see Psalm 68:18); he represents conquest on all planes—in the mind, in science, in progress, and in certain trials of initiation. He has replied to the sphinx's riddle; therefore, two sphinxes draw his chariot. He is above all things triumph in the mind.
Card Seven
Nine of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Obstacles, adversity, disasters.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
Generally speaking, a bad card.
Card Description
A man leans upon his staff with an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. His build indicates that he may prove a formidable opponent. Behind are eight other staves—upright, in orderly arrangement, like a fence.
Card Eight
Six of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Declaration, confession, publicity; a proposal of love.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Unfavourable issue of lawsuit.
Card Description
A ferryman carries passengers in his raft to the far shore. The course is smooth, and the freight is light; the work is not beyond his strength.
Card Nine
The Star from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Loss, theft, deprivation, abandonment.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The Star, Dog-Star, or Sirius, also called fantastically the Star of the Magi. Grouped about it are seven minor luminaries, and beneath it is a naked female figure, with her left knee upon the earth and her right foot upon the water. She is in the act of pouring fluids from two vessels. A bird is perched on a tree near her; for this a butterfly on a rose has been substituted in some later cards. So also the Star has been called that of Hope. This is one of the cards which Court de Gebelin describes as wholly Egyptian-that is to say, in his own reverie.
Card Description
A large, radiant star of eight points, surrounded by seven lesser stars—also of eight points. The female figure in the foreground is entirely naked. Her left knee is on the land and her right foot on the water. She pours the Water of Life from two great pitchers, irrigating sea and land. Behind her is rising ground, and on the right a shrub on which a bird perches. The figure expresses eternal youth and beauty. The star is l'etoile flamboyante, a symbol of Freemasonry. The figure communicates to the earth around her the substance of the heavens and the elements.
Card Ten
Queen of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonor, depravity.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A rich marriage for a man and a distinguished one for a woman.
Card Description
She is beautiful, fair, and dreamy; as if she sees visions in her cup. This is, however, only one of her sides; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream.
Card Eleven
Three of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
The conclusion of any matter in plenty, perfection and merriment; an easy birth; victory, fulfillment, solace, healing.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Unexpected advancement for a military man.
Card Description
Ladies stand in a garden with cups held high, as if making a promise to one another.
Card Twelve
Six of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Desire, greed, envy, jealousy, illusion.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A check on the Querent's ambition.
Card Description
A merchant weighs money in a pair of scales, and distributes it to the needy and distressed. It is a testimony to his own success in life, as well as to his goodness of heart.
Card Thirteen
King of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Dishonest, double-dealing man; mischief, demands of payment, injustice, vice, scandal, pillage, considerable loss.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Loss.
Card Description
He holds a short scepter in his left hand and a cup in his right. His throne is set upon the sea. On one side a ship sails, and on the other a fish leaps.
Card Fourteen
Nine of Swords from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Good ground for suspicion against a doubtful person.
Card Description
A woman sits on her bed, sobbing, with swords on the wall above her. She grieves as if she knows of no sorrow like hers. It is a card of utter desolation.
Card Fifteen
Seven of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Cause for anxiety regarding money someone wants to borrow.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Impatience, apprehension, suspicion.
Card Description
A young man leans on his staff, and looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a plant on his right. It looks as if these were his treasures, and as if his heart were there.
Card Sixteen
The Devil from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
The Devil. In the eighteenth century this card seems to have been rather a symbol of merely animal impudicity. Except for a fantastic head-dress, the chief figure is entirely naked; it has bat-like wings, and the hands and feet are represented by the claws of a bird. In the right hand there is a sceptre terminating in a sign which has been thought to represent fire. The figure as a whole is not particularly evil; it has no tail, and the commentators who have said that the claws are those of a harpy have spoken at random. There is no better ground for the alternative suggestion that they are eagle's claws. Attached, by a cord depending from their collars, to the pedestal on which the figure is mounted, are two small demons, presumably male and female. These are tailed, but not winged. Since 1856 the influence of Eliphas Levi and his doctrine of occultism has changed the face of this card, and it now appears as a pseudo-Baphometic figure with the head of a goat and a great torch between the horns; it is seated instead of erect, and in place of the generative organs there is the Hermetic caduceus. In Le Tarot Divinatoire of Papus the small demons are replaced by naked human beings, male and female who are yoked only to each other. The author may be felicitated on this improved symbolism.
Card Description
The main figure is entirely naked; he has bat-like wings, and his feet have the claws of a bird. His right hand is upraised and extended, which is the reverse of the blessing given by the Hierophant. In his left hand there is a great flaming torch, inverted toward the earth. A reversed pentagram is on his forehead. There is a ring in front of the altar, from which two chains are attached to the necks of two figures, male and female. These are analogous to The Lovers, like Adam and Eve after the Fall. They represent the chains and fatality of the material life.
Card Seventeen
Two of Wands from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion; trouble, fear.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings (When Upright)
A young lady may expect trivial disappointments.
Card Description
A tall man looks from a roof with battlements, overlooking sea and shore. He holds a globe in his right hand, and a staff in his left hand rests on the battlement. Another staff is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lily appears on the left side.
Card Eighteen
Knight of Pentacles from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Inertia, idleness, inactivity, stagnation; also stillness, discouragement, carelessness.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
A brave man out of employment.
Card Description
A knight rides a slow, heavy horse, similar in appearance to himself. He displays his symbol, but does not look at it.
Card Nineteen
The World from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Assured success, compensation, voyage, travel, emigration, fleeing, change of place.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The four living creatures of the Apocalypse and Ezekiel's vision, attributed to the evangelists in Christian symbolism, are grouped about an elliptic garland, as if it were a chain of flowers intended to symbolize all sensible things; within this garland there is the figure of a woman, whom the wind has girt about the loins with a light scarf, and this is all her vesture. She is in the act of dancing, and has a wand in either hand. It is eloquent as an image of the swirl of the sensitive life, of joy attained in the body, of the soul's intoxication in the earthly paradise, but still guarded by the Divine Watchers, as if by the powers and the graces of the Holy Name, Tetragammaton, JVHV--those four ineffable letters which are sometimes attributed to the mystical beasts. Eliphas Levi calls the garland a crown, and reports that the figure represents Truth. Dr. Papus connects it with the Absolute and the realization of the Great Work; for yet others it is a symbol of humanity and the eternal reward of a life that has been spent well. It should be noted that in the four quarters of the garland there are four flowers distinctively marked. According to P. Christian, the garland should be formed of roses, and this is the kind of chain which Eliphas Levi says is less easily broken than a chain of iron. Perhaps by antithesis, but for the same reason, the iron crown of Peter may he more lightly on the heads of sovereign pontiffs than the crown of gold on kings.
Card Description
The four living creatures of the Apocalypse and Ezekiel's vision are grouped around an elliptic garland. They are attributed to the four Gospels in Christian symbolism. Within this garland there is the figure of a woman, whom the wind has clothed with a light scarf, and this is all she wears. She is dancing, with a wand in either hand. It speaks of the swirl of the sensory life, of joy attained in the body, of the soul's intoxication in the earthly paradise. However, she is still guarded by the Divine Watchers. They are the powers and the graces of the Holy Name, Tetragammaton, JVHV. These four ineffable letters are often attributed to the four mystical beasts. This card represents the perfection and end of the Cosmos, the secret within the Cosmos, its rapture when it understands itself in God. This card is further the state of the soul in the awareness of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-aware spirit.
Card Twenty
Knight of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Reversed
Trickery, deception, cunning, swindling, duplicity, fraud.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Irregularity.
Card Description
A graceful but not warlike figure rides quietly. He wears a winged helmet to symbolize the imagination. He is a dreamer, and the images of sensory things haunt him in his vision.
Card Twenty One
Five of Cups from the Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck
Card Meaning When Upright
Inheritance, patrimony, transmission of wealth, but not corresponding to expectations; marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration.
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
Generally favourable; a happy marriage; also patrimony, legacies, gifts, success in enterprise.
Card Description
A dark, cloaked figure looks sideways at three cups lying on the ground. Two others stand upright behind him. A bridge in the background leads to a small keep or holding. This is a card of loss, but something remains at the end; three have been taken, but two are left.
